Campus Snapshot: The Drunk Bus
Published January 29, 2008
By Max C. Bookman
Three girls from Harris Millis, finally free after five days of subjugation to boring intro-level lectures, leave their triple (it’s supposed to be a double), each daintily exiting the room one after the other.
The girl with jet black hair and pale skin pauses outside the door and checks her bursting bag to make sure everything is in order - cell, money, Marb Reds, Playboy Zippo, various makeup accessories, new pack of Orbit sweet mint, eroding ticket stub, half-finished bottle of Coke Zero mixed with Popov, Cat Card, and room key.
The air temperature outside is 26° with a wind chill that makes it feel like 16, but the three girls march confidently sans outerwear. “Ohmygod, it’s fucking brick,” squeals the girl with jet black hair as they walk past the cigarette crowd outside of Harris Millis, “plus I’m drunk and it’s still frickin’ freezing.”
The tall brunette suggests taking the drunk bus.
The short brunette agrees.
Riding the drunk bus, known officially by UVM’s Transportation and Parking Services as “Off-Campus LateNight,” is a longstanding tradition among undergrads still on campus - a recurring spectacle woven into the fabric of UVM nightlife. It’s not a service touted on the front of a UVM recruitment pamphlet but a necessary service all the same. But like many of our slightly less savory traditions, the drunk bus has experienced some tweaking in the form of school regulation.
By the time the three girls from Harris Millis arrive, the horde that had formed outside University Heights was already being shepherded onboard the bus. The tall brunette steps on first, directed by a man in
a yellow jacket.
These yellow-jacketed bus monitors are a new and often unwelcome addition to the drunk bus, implemented at the beginning of this year. Under the new system, they’re placed strategically at every spot along the bus route, as well as onboard. Thehighlights of their job seem to be limited to shouting “stand back” when the bus arrives and shouting “no open containers on the bus” when such activity is observed.
“That’s it,” barks the man in the yellow jacket, “bus is full.” The two other girls, denied passage by a yellow arm, relentlessly protest. Transportation and Parking Services may be okay with dangerously (and probably illegally) overloading busses during the school week, but when it comes to the drunk bus, the passenger limit is strictly enforced, even if that means shamelessly breaking up groups of people trying to board together.
Somehow, their protests are fruitful (it’s a rare occurrence) and the two other girls from Harris Millis are permitted to join the tall brunette aboard the bus filled with other underclassmen in various states of inebriation.
The super-chill bus driver cranks the radio and flashes the interior lights. The pumping and pulsing cause the short brunette to cling to the nearest pole. Her world begins to spin- the result of too much cheap vodka. The tall brunette chats with strangers about prospective places to party and almost puking from prolonged pounding of Popov. There’s an odor afloat unique to the drunk bus– a mix of perfume, perspiration, and petroleum.
A group of guys is sitting near the back, and the girl with jet black hair recognizes the boy with the backwards Giants hat from last semester’s Intro to Fiction in their midst.
“Thirsty?” she inquires, thrusting the half-finished Coke Zero bottle into his chest. Before the boy with the backwards Giants hat has a chance to profess his thirst, the man in the yellow jacket, eyes scanning the volatile mix of anticipation and alcohol, maneuvers his short chubby body through the throngs of purring Catamounts towards the three girls’ position.
He reaches the back of the bus, “no open containers!” The girl with the jet black hair promptly apologizes and returns the Coke Zero to her bag. But the boy with the backwards Giants hat and his friends, encouraged by the prospect of impressing cute girls and fueled by hours of pregaming, are not so complacent. They audibly mutter insults at the man in the yellow jacket as he retreats to his post on the deep stair by the second bus door. Sadly, he’s used to this sort of conduct, and lets it pass. For some reason, UVMers don’t seem to appreciate their nightlife being regulated by hired drones.
“It’s pretty ironic,” remarks the girl with jet black hair, “how they obviously hired those people to take care of us ‘cuz we’re drunk, but they totally pretend to not know where we’re doing the drinking.” The short brunette counters, “but like, how could they ever have the drunk bus with out them? It would be like, chaos.”
The windows are too fogged up to determine the location of the bus, so the three freshmen file off with the boy with the backwards Giants hat and his friends. Out- side, there’s a man in a yellow jacket, shouting “stand back” to the crowd of return- ing partygoers ready to get back to campus.
Yellow-jacketed monitors aboard the drunk bus are certainly not the most pressing issue for students on campus. But they are surely the first palpable signs of a UVM whose very spirit is in transition. Like the presence of the same monitors at the naked bike ride, along with the strict enforcement of a new dry campus policy, these are the signs of a slow but deliberate caging of the unruly facets of UVM’s character into a controlled environment that the school can regulate.
Back onboard, the man in the yellow jacket pre pares to facilitate the trip of a new crew of obnoxious intoxicated undergrads. It’s a good thing he’s there. How did the drunk bus ever get along without him?
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